Psychological Warfare

Nothing is as smart as a human being except another human being. What any one man can try to achieve in the way of deceit, another man can try to figure out. The bulk of propaganda, short of peremptory tactical leaflets, is filled with information about the enemy's personnel, his opinion of himself, his opinion of you, his state of mind, his order of battle, his economic system, and all the rest. The Japanese government, throughout the war, kept the United States informed in English of the changes of ministers and other high officials in the Japanese government. This gave us good political background. There was no use their trying to hide it over a long period of time, and presumably Joho Kyoku (the Imperial Japanese Board of Information) figured that the help it gave the Americans, in filling out their political intelligence files for them, would be more than counterbalanced by the fact that such news would make American newspapermen, officials, officers and others read the propaganda in order to get the facts.

Over and above the direct contribution to straight news or intelligence, enemy propaganda in times of war or crisis affords a clue to enemy strategy. If the coordination is not present the propaganda may do the enemy himself harm. But the moment coordination is present, and one end of the coordinate is handed over to us, we can start figuring what the coordination is for. Sometimes propaganda is sacrificed for weightier considerations of security; German propaganda gave little advance warning of a war with the U.S.S.R., and Soviet propaganda gave none. In other instances, the coordination does give the show away.

In 1941-1942, the Japanese radio began to show an unwholesome interest in Christmas Island in its broadcasts to Japanese at home and abroad. Christmas Island, below Sumatra, was pointed out as a really important place, and tremendously significant in naval strategy. Subsequently the Japanese armed forces went to and took Christmas Island. The home public was delighted that this vital spot had been secured. Of course, Christmas Island was not as important as the Japanese radio said it was, but the significant thing was that the radio talked about it ahead of time. For what little it was worth the Japanese had given us warning.

Enemy realization of an impending defeat may be preceded by disparagement of the importance of the area in which the defeat is to take place, or by description to the home audience of the enormous strength which enemy forces face at that particular place. Enemy action—when the enemy is security-minded—may be anticipated from his complete silence on something which he would normally talk about. It must have seemed odd that the Americans stopped talking about nuclear fission altogether, when prewar years had seen a certain number of news items on the subject in the New York press each month.

A nation getting ready to strike à la Pearl Harbor may prepare by alleging American aggression. A nation preparing to break the peace frequently gets out peace propaganda of the most blatant sort, trying to make sure that its own audience (as well as the world) will believe the real responsibility to lie in the victim whom he attacks. Hitler protested his love of Norwegian neutrality; then he hit, claiming that he was protecting it from the British. No hard-and-fast rules can be made up for all wars or all belligerents. The Germans behaved according to one pattern; the Japanese, another.

For example, the German High Command sought to avoid bragging about anything they could not actually accomplish. They often struck blows without warning but they never said they would strike a blow when they knew or believed that they could not do it. The British and Americans made up a timetable of this, and were able to guess how fast the Germans thought they were going to advance in Russia. Knowing this, the British and Americans planned their propaganda to counter the German boasts; they tried to pin the Germans down to objectives they knew the Germans would not take, in order to demonstrate to the peoples of Europe that Nazi Germany had finally bitten off more than it could chew.

Later, the Allies remembered this German habit when the Nazis on the radio began talking about their own secret weapons. When the British bombed the V-1 ramps on the French coast, the German radio stopped that talk. The British therefore had additional grounds for supposing that the ramps they had bombed were a part of the secret weapon the Germans bragged about. The British further knew that the Germans would try to counter the psychological effect of the announcement of Allied D-Day with some pretty vivid news of their own. When the German radio began mentioning secret weapons again, the British suspected that the Germans had gotten around the damage done to the ramps. D-Day came; the Germans, in one single broadcast designed to impress the Japanese and Chinese, announced that the secret German weapon was about to be turned loose, and that more such weapons would follow. One day later the first V-1 hit London.

In order to follow this type of propaganda, a quantitative chart is needed. A sample imaginary chart for a three-month period is given in chart IV. This chart reveals at a glance the fact that the enemy kept mentioning food supply and naval warfare until the middle of March, because he presumably thought his blockade runners would bring in more food. After March, food drops in emphasis but naval warfare continues to be stressed. In May, following enemy admission to himself of the hopeless naval situation, naval warfare drops almost altogether out of sight. Foodstuffs continue to be modestly mentioned as the enemy explained away minor difficulties, but the use of secret weapons propaganda shows that the enemy propagandists had to have something sensational to keep up the courage of the home audience. Whether the enemy really had a secret weapon or not, depends on the national character, past records, and so forth. The Germans and Japanese both said they had world-shaking secret weapons. The Germans delivered; the Japanese did not.

Such quantity records will also be useful in showing the enemy's propaganda statistically with reference to number of words uttered on each of his major subjects, number of inches of newspaper columns for specified kinds of news, and so on. Percentage charts show which major shifts his propaganda performs. Audience charts (that is, how much time he spends addressing workers, pacifists, mothers, minorities, etc.) show which groups he is really trying to reach. Emphasis charts for selected topics on which your own propaganda has been active show how much you force him to talk about something which he may not wish to discuss.

Such statistical use is possible only if usable records are maintained. A basic item-by-item file of all important or new items, combined with a worksheet of the amount of radio time or printed space the enemy put into use for a stated period, will provide the materials needed for propanal. Propanal is indispensable to psychological warfare. It sifts ordinary intelligence out from propaganda in one process, processing straight intelligence ready for the intelligence people to use, yet providing analysis for psychological warfare purposes.

For peacetime purposes, it is to be remembered that though enemies may hide their scientists, their launching ramps, or their rockets, they cannot hide the occasion for war, nor their own readiness measures. No government can afford to seem the plain unqualified aggressor. Propanal may prove to be one of the soundest war-forecasting systems available to us in a period of ultra-destructive weapons. Psychological mobilization may be disguised: it cannot be concealed.